Marianne Thomas sat perfectly still in the car. She had been there for the past hour, unmoving, lost deep in thought. Things had been going well—almost too well. Fate, for once, seemed to be aligning in her favor. She had just met Melody, who by the looks of it had lost all sense of herself, unraveling piece by piece. It should have pleased her completely, and in a way, it did. Yet Marianne had lived long enough to know better than to trust when life appeared too smooth, too cooperative. Not for her. Never for her.

So here she was, meditating in silence, forcing her racing mind to slow down, to sharpen. She had dedicated her entire life to one singular purpose—finishing off the Thomas family, tearing them down until there was nothing left. Every last one of them. Because it had been them. Always them. Richard Thomas, with his ruthless ambition and polished charm, had taken her father’s business, stripped it bare, crushed it until nothing remained. And when her father broke under the weight of it, when he had put a bullet through his own head, the whispers and scandals had followed, dragging her mother down next. A mental asylum for the rest of her life. And Marianne…

Marianne had been eight years old. Eight. She had grown up surrounded by the cries and laughter of the insane, their broken minds twisting reality into nightmares. She had learned early what people became when life snapped them in half. She understood the darkest corners of the human soul because she had lived among them. She had eaten in their company. Slept in their noise. Breathed in their madness until it became the air she knew best.

And because of that, she trusted her instincts.

Right now, those instincts were speaking again. Warning her.

She was close. So close to destroying them all, to finally watching the Thomas name burn to ash. It was all falling into place… but now there was Adam Collins.

Adam Collins, with his quiet eyes and sharper-than-steel mind. A man who had dug into the past she had kept buried for so long, a man who saw too much, understood too much. He wasn’t like the others. He didn’t need her help to drive the final nail into Melody’s coffin. He could do it all on his own. Then why look for her. She wanted an answer to this…

Just as she was about to open her eyes and tap on the window, signaling her brother that it was time to leave, a fragment of memory slid into her mind, sharp and uninvited. It came from the years she had spent in that dreadful asylum, when she was far too young to understand most of what she heard but old enough to remember every word.

The attending doctor had been speaking about one of the patients, a woman who always spiraled into screaming fits whenever it rained. Marianne remembered sitting in the corner, a thin, silent child, listening because there was nothing else to do.

“People assume she hates that toy elephant because she lashes out at it everyday, throwing it again and again,” the doctor had said, his voice weary, almost impatient. “But that isn’t true. In fact, she loves that toy. It was the only good thing she has left from her past.. The trigger isn’t because she hates it- it’s because she loves it too much. So, she pretends to hate it. That way no one try to take it from her. Every morning, she looks for it, so that she can throw it about…but in truth, every morning, she is reassuring herself that her favourite toy is there.”

At the time, the words had drifted past her, strange and heavy, too big for her small mind to hold. But now-decades later-they slid into place like a key turning in a lock.

Marianne froze, her hand falling away from the window.

Melody had told her that Adam hated Melanie. She had insisted on it and been frustrated by it. Because on the surface, their relationship had been perfect. As if the two were totally in love with each other. And Adam… Adam himself had claimed the same thing in his usual, measured way that he did not care for Melanie.

But was it true?

The memory from the asylum whispered otherwise. People lied about what they hated. People lied about what they loved even more. She thought back to the time when they had thought that Melanie and Melody had both gone missing.He had been pale with worry. And even before that, he had come to meet them on behalf of Melanie. It was obvious that he had come because he cared about Melanie…

What if, Adam had early on realized that Melanie was Melody? And then is why he had lied. That seemed more and more plausible now. If Adam Collins knew that the woman who was pretending to be his wife was not her and that the woman he loved was away, he would not sit still.

But if he knew, why was he letting her be close to Cadence Sint. Even if Melanie had lost her memory, Adam had all his senses. Why not claim his wife?

No, there were too many question in her head right now. Marianne sighed. She needed the answer to the most important one, for now…was Adam Collins lying about hating Melanie?

And if Adam Collins had been lying about Melanie, if there was more beneath that calm, unreadable surface of his… then Marianne needed to know before she made her next move.

Slowly, she pulled out her phone and dialed a number.

The man on the other end answered on the second ring.

“Have you dug deeper?” she asked without preamble, her voice low, controlled.

A pause. “On Collins?”

“Yes. I want everything. Not just the obvious connections. I want to know what he doesn’t want anyone to find. Who he calls. Who he meets. What he does when no one is watching.”

The man hesitated. “That kind of digging… it’ll take time.”

“You have twenty-four hours,” she said flatly. “And start with his connection to Melanie. All previous texts, calls, etc. Every shadow of a meeting. I want to know what he feels for her. Whether he hates her… or something else entirely.”